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Oh, Brave
New World With Such People In It After months of build-up and controversy
and despite the best efforts of many to impede its successful
release, Fahrenheit 9/11 opened across America in the number one
spot at the box office. The efforts by the artists formerly know
as the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy to discourage theaters from
showing the film seem to have completely backfired; the film not
only had a successful opening day in terms of the amount of dollars
brought in, it actually set a record for the highest average First the movie itself. It's a very powerful film and nothing if not the most radical thing I've seen percolate this far up in mainstream culture in the last 30 years. Using his considerable skills as a muckraker, Moore doesn't so much connect the dots between Saudi royals, the Bush family, Haliburton, Enron, Carlyle, et al as much as he does simply put them out there and leave most of the connecting up to the audience. While right wing flaks along with a few more honest critics are already trying to dismiss it as conspiracy mongering--and, like anything, it's not above criticism and open to interpretation--the film speaks for itself and Moore's own narration admits that it is less than omniscient. He presents facts and provides documentation alongside interpretations which you can agree with or not. The closing voice-over by Moore, stating that war is as much a method of control of the American population as it is the enemy, is Anarchist Pacifism 101. Images, though, are harder to dismiss and Moore selects and presents them expertly. The most damning blows against the Bush administration come when he just lets Bush talk. You can see more about how callow and self-absorbed he and his policies are in his annoyed dismissal of a question about Osama--something to the effect of "I don't worry that much about Osama Bin Laden"--than in any amount of rhetoric from the left wing press. And the documentary footage of raids on Iraqi houses as well as his poignant depiction of a soldier's family from Flint transcends the kind of petty quibbling in the press about the film--is it really important whether the Bin Laden family was flown out of the country on September 12th, 13th or 14th, or is the fact that it happened at all really the salient point? Criticism of the film from Moore's ideological opponents was really inevitable and is therefore unsurprising. The National Review, for instance, views Moore's drawing connections between oil in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Bush family fortune and the invasions of both countries by U.S. troops as conspiracy theory, even though writers at such a publication presumably understand economic theory well enough to allow the plausibility of the thesis, at least to some extent. Former Trotskyite-cum-Nation columnist-cum Bush apologist Christopher Hitchens writing for MSNBC attacks the film and Michael Moore with his signature blend of ad hominem, purple prose and strawman argument. Hitchens' reality tunnel has become so narrow that he can perhaps be said to have viewed this film through a glass darkly. Citing Moore's use of a quote from 1984, the man who seems to think he is the heir in letters to George Orwell says "In general, it's highly unwise to quote Orwell if you are already way out of your depth on the question of moral equivalence." Would that Hitchens followed his own advice on this score. As I say, I expected all of that, but it was Ray Bradbury's indignant reaction to a film he had yet to see that caught me by surprise. Fahrenheit 9/11, of course, is a play on the title of and tip of the hat to Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury's famous novel about a dystopia where books and libraries are banned and burned when they are discovered. Rather than taking this as a tribute to his skills as a writer or to the endurance of his ideas, however, Bradbury is insulted that Moore took 'his' title without asking his permission going as far, according to the AP as to claim "he would rather avoid litigation and is 'hoping to settle this as two gentlemen, if he'll shake hands with me and give me back my book and title.'" This reaction is ridiculous and megalomaniacal on the part of Bradbury. Now, I've always admired Ray Bradbury. I read most of his books when I was young and enjoyed them. As an adult, I can't help but be impressed with a guy who has spent so much of his personal time helping raise money for public libraries--I've worked at no less than three such institutions where he has come personally to make fundraising appearances, including the Columbus library where I met him ten years ago and understand that this is just the tip of the iceberg as far as that goes. But this egotistical, anti-intellectual and censorial stance is such that it mocks all of those efforts and, indeed, the whole free-speech message of Fahrenheit 451. On the face of it, of course, Bradbury's complaints are absurd and would be even if he had anything resembling a legal argument. He doesn't, of course, as titles are not subject to copyright. Worse, the man has no moral leg to stand on; unless Ray Bradbury cleared "I Sing the Body Electric" with the Walt Whitman estate--to cite one example--than he is being a hypocrite and a jackass. Offended by Moore's politics? Big deal, maybe Walt Whitman might've been offended by his poetry being hijacked for a story about a robot--and he would've been wrong to feel that way as well. I'm sorry Ray doesn't like it, but once you put something out there you really don't have any control over what your readers (including other artists) do with it. Moore's playing off of Bradbury's work to make his title is no different and no more or less moral than Bradbury's use of quotes from Shakespeare, Whitman and others in titling his works. And what's this "his" title crap? Fahrenheit 451 belongs to the ages. It's everyone's book, Bradbury just wrote it. Even if he doesn't like Moore personally or artistically, he should understand that the title is a tribute and testimony to the continuing relevance of his own work, whether he agrees with Moore's positions or not. It's always important to separate an artist from his work. Wagner is more than an anti-Semite, Miles Davis more than a wife-beater. But this incident will certainly be at least a small stain on Bradbury’s reputation, refuting as it does principles he advanced in his youthful life and work. How far it will go to repudiate his work has yet to be determined. Is he going to be Woody Hayes, known outside of Ohio for primarily for embarrassing events that happened during his decline rather than for all that he achieved in his life and career before that? The writing will still stand on its own to be evaluated, unlike the more ephemeral nature of athletics. A more relevant parallel probably can be found in Cole Porter, whose ridiculous suit against a parody in Mad Magazine referencing him inspired one of the funniest and most widely quoted lines in American jurisprudence: "Cole Porter does not own iambic pentameter." Cole is mostly remembered these days as a writer of good tunes rather than an egomaniac and I expect Ray will mostly be remembered for the books he wrote in his prime rather than his folly in his old age. But where I eagerly shook his hand ten years ago, I would do so much more reluctantly today.
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